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The Finishing Touches

2011-11-27T18:33:00.001-05:00

It's a sweater!

It's official I've finished knitting the sweater. All that's left are the finishing touches:

Weave in ends
Block the sweater
Sew sleeve seams
Sew sleeve hems
Sew front band facings to inside of front edge
Sew zipper to front bands
Fold and sew collar

Complete steps 1 to 7 and I'll have a finished sweater. So close.

Now to figure out how the hell to block a sweater.

Yoke? What's a Yoke?

2011-11-23T13:11:00.001-05:00

It looks like a sweater now!

Seriously, what is a yoke? I've never heard the word yoke used in this context. Whatever, I'm working on the chest and neck area that's all that matters.

For some reason I've gotten myself into the most trouble in this section. I first had to attach the sleeves to the lower body, by simply knitting everything off the spare needles in order. Right-front, sleeve, back, sleeve, left-front. I counted the stitches to make sure I had 316 (yes, 316!), all was well. It's when I started knitting up the work that I started to run into problems.

First, when I hit the section where I attached a sleeve it became incredibly difficult to maneuver my needles. It's hard to explain, but essentially my needles were tied together by 4 bind-off stitches. This did not give me a lot of room to change the needle's angles in relation to each other making it very hard to go under and knit the stitches (does this make sense?). This didn't bug me for too long, since after knitting several rows it was a non-issue. It wasn't until I recounted the amount of stitches I had on my needles after knitting 18 rows did I realize something was terribly wrong.

I was missing 9 stitches! How does this even happen? It could be that I wasn't paying attention and decreased too many stitches here and there. I'm supposed to be decreasing 8 stitches every right-side row. The balance of stitches between the separate sections of sleeves and front/back of the sweater were all out of whack. I spent some time looking at possible increases that wouldn't be too noticeable to fix this stupid mistake. I settled on M1L (make 1 left). I can't even see where I added these stitches anymore, so I guess I picked the right method.

I have 30 more rows of the yoke to knit then I have to shape the collar and finally bond off. I'm so close to finishing this sweater.

Sleeves!

2011-11-21T12:17:00.001-05:00

It's going to be a sweater.

It has been a while since my last post mostly because school has been eating my soul. After a long day of writing presentations and reports the last thing I want to do is sit down and write some more. I knit instead.

Knitting has actually provided me some much needed stress relief. During the school months I have issues keeping my stress in check, and being able to sit down and relax while still keeping my brain busy has proven to be incredibly helpful. Also, something productive comes out of my relaxation time.

I had moved onto knitting the sleeves after finishing up the lower body. They start with 6 rows of tighter stitches knitted with a smaller set of needles. Then a turning ridge is created by purling a row on the right side of the work (this all makes sense in my head). This was also the first time I worked with increases.

The sleeves are knitted in a way so that the circumference of the sleeve is smaller at the wrist than it is at the armpit. I was worried about increases at first but it turned out to be very easy and straightforward. I just had to knit a stitch near the beginning and end of a row in such a way that it created 2 stitches instead of one. I started with 49 stitches on the needles and ended with 77. Overall, I think they look pretty good. My tension turned out to be pretty consistent; something I worried about when starting this project.

Next up I have to attach the sleeves to the lower body and work on the yoke. I'm in the homestretch now. How do those words taste, Andrew?

I'm Disappointed

2011-11-09T13:29:00.001-05:00

These new blog posts were supposed to be a humorous recount of my struggles with knitting. However, I'm disappointed that I've had very few struggles to recount. Maybe it's because I'm knitting a very simple part of the sweater right now which just requires knit stitch on the right side of the work, and purl stitch on the wrong side of the work. Or maybe I'm just a naturally talented knitter (yeah right).

Regardless how well I'm doing right now things are about to get more interesting. I have about 12cm to go before I start decreasing stitches and finish the lower body of the sweater. I'll then have to move on to the sleeves, which upon reading the pattern are confusing me. ~~I fully expected to be knitting in the round for the sleeves, but it doesn't mention any knitting in the round in the pattern.~~

I guess a good rule of thumb is to read through the entire pattern before confusing yourself. The sleeves are not knitted in the round, but rather knitted normally and then seamed to form tubes after blocking the sweater.

I expect to be starting on the sleeves sometime this week. Onwards and upwards!

One Skein Down

2011-11-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

I just finished knitting one skein of yarn which is about 100g or 190m of yarn. This has made approximately 19cm of sweater. I need about 38cm before I start shaping the sweater for sleeves.

My current goal is to get this sweater done in time for Festivus (which is December 23rd for all you uninitiated). It'll be tough, but I think I'll be able to do it as long as I don't hit too many snags when things start to get complicated.

An Update

2011-11-07T14:30:00.000-05:00

I was practicing for my business presentation tonight when I realized I haven't posted a sweater update in awhile. It's not a very good head band anymore.

This piece needs to be 15 inches, so I've got long ways to go.

A Milestone

2011-11-04T18:25:00.001-04:00

Kick-ass headband. It's cabled!

It's official, the cabled band is complete. It's amazing to compare the stitches when I first started the band to the stitches at the end. It's quite the improvement if I do say so myself.

I have now begun picking up stitches down the length of the band to start knitting up the body of the sweater. This is proving to be pretty difficult since the last stitches on my rows are still very messy and uneven. I'm finding it hard to see what stitches I should be picking up. I think I'm doing it right, but I'm not sure. Then again I'm not really quite sure about anything I'm doing regarding this project.

Picking up 177 stitches is going to take a long time...

I Made A Big Mistake

2011-11-04T00:43:00.002-04:00

Somehow I skipped a row of knitting without realizing it. Five rows later and I notice that the cabling is starting to appear on the wrong side of the work. Usually I just skip trying to fix stitches, because quite frankly I have no idea how to without completely unravelling the work. However, this was quite a noticeable error that I couldn't just leave without fixing. Thus began the most stressful knitting experience I've had to date.

The last time I unravelled my work to fix a mistake I ended up unravelling all the way to the needle (this happened at least 5 times, actually), and at this point I was a good 150 rows into the band. The last thing I wanted to do was unravel way too much of the work. After much internal debate I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. It took me a good 15-20 minutes to unravel 5 rows. I was being particularly cautious and this took much concentration. With lots of patience and perseverance I unraveled to where the missing row should go and continued on knitting without much of a problem.

Crisis averted. I'm awesome. Deal with it.

Haters Gonna Hate

2011-11-02T01:38:00.006-04:00

Andrew: "Knitting rectangles is easy, but anything more complicated and you'll give up in frustration."

Megan: "Learning to knit is like subconsciously admitting to yourself that you will never have a meaningful relationship ever again with anything other than a cat."

Mom: "You look ridiculous."

Frustration

2011-11-01T00:12:00.005-04:00

I cast on 14 stitches and I literally sat there staring at my knitting needles for a good minute or two. I have no idea how to knit. I watched many videos leading up to this point to familiarize myself with the basic concepts, but it's one thing to watch a pro do it.

I first tried to do continental knitting, since it looked easy. It wasn't. Continental knitting is when the knitter knits with the working yarn in their left hand. It looked like less work, but my fingers just can't do it. So I tried the English method where the knitter knits with the working yarn in their right hand. Using this technique I was able to at least knit a few stitches.

Fast forward a few more rows and everything is looking great. Then I hit a speed bump. I for some reason had 15 stitches on my needles when I'm supposed to have 14. I had no idea what I did wrong or how to fix it, so I unraveled my work and tried again. Fast forward a few rows, and again the same thing happened. I magically picked up another stitch. Unravel, and try again. I must have unraveled and tried again 5 more times, and then frustration set in. Andrew said this would happen, but my perseverance pulled through. This problem has happened a few more times now, but I just ignore it and knit 2 stitches together. It seems to be working out okay so far.

Before long I had hit my first milestone. I completed the cabled band pattern once. I just have to repeat this pattern 5 more times to finish the band.

Casting On

2011-10-27T20:19:00.001-04:00

I've picked the pattern I'm going to knit, so all that's left to do is cast on.

Apparently there's a lot of different ways to cast on. I settled on the long tail cast on because it looked to be the easiest and quickest method. I was right.

Counting as I went I cast on 14 stitches successfully. It was at this point that I realised I had no idea how to knit.

What have I gotten myself into?

The Bet

2011-10-27T12:49:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I (foolishly?) bet my good friend Andrew that I could knit a sweater having never in my life knitted something before. This week I have started knitting said sweater.

What follows will be a personal account of my frustrations, triumphs, and musings as I knit my very first sweater.

Brandon

In Memory of Nana

2009-01-22T13:00:00.002-05:00

Last night my great grandma passed away at the age of 99 a few days before her 100th birthday. This almost came as a relief for us; her family. Her quality of life had greatly deteriorated. I still can't help but feel sad that someone with that much history has left us. The following are a few of my favourite stories and memories that I have of her.

Allowances
Back when Nana was still living with my Grandma and Grandpa she would occasionally give Blair and I two dollars each. We would get this money in little orange envelopes; two loonies each. I still remember the first day we got toonies instead of two loonies. She was very excited about the new coin, because now she would be able to give is one coin instead of two. I think this continued until she was moved into a retirement home.

On special occasions like birthdays or Christmas she would give me a ten dollar bill. However, this was no normal ten dollar bill, this bill had to be almost new and never used. She would ask the bank tellers to give her bills that had no folds in them, they had to be crisp and new. Every time I opened my birthday or Christmas card to see that bill she would tell me how special it was. She was not a happy camper when the bank didn't have any non-creased bills, and I'll be the first one to tell you that it just wasn't the same getting those ones in my cards. I always felt bad folding the ten dollars into my wallet; ruining such a perfect bill. I would keep it out of my wallet for as long as possible. I think it was Nana's way of telling me to save my money.

Crokinole
Often my brother and I would be challenged to a friendly match of Crokinole with Nana. I don't remember if I was any good or if I ever won, I also don't think it matters. What matters is how much fun we had with this simple game. Nana taught us the ins and outs of the game. For example: always make sure the disc is on the smoother side so it will slide easier on the board. Nana would use the Crokinole cue, while I would use my fingers as I never got the hang of the cue. I'm not sure, but I think Blair tended towards the cue as well. I still remember one match we had, Nana was first to go. She of course got the disc right in the middle. This meant that me or Blair (I'm not sure who) had the chance to knock her disc out from the middle. I think it was Blair who made the fateful shot. He put all his power into the cue and launched his disc across the board to the disc sitting happily in the middle. Blair's disc made contact then launched into the air and landed soundly in Nana's blouse. We shared some good laughs about that one.

The Chipmunk That Sat on the Basketball
Nana had a few stories that she would love telling us every time we visited her. This was one of them. Granted, this is not a very long story, but it was important enough for Nana that she'd tell us about it all the time.

One day when Nana was sitting in the back sunroom of my Grandma and Grandpa's house she spotted a chipmunk. She watched this chipmunk as it went about it's daily business. To Nana's surprise the chipmunk hopped up on a basketball in the backyard and sat on it perfectly balanced eating a nut. She was so amazed by this sight that the memory stuck with her for quite some time, and every time she was reminded of it she would have to tell someone.

The Horse and Buggy Crash
This was another one of Nana's stories that she would always tell every time she was reminded of it, and she was reminded quite often because it involves a hurt elbow.

I'm not entirely sure what year this took place in, but from what I can tell Nana was a teenager at the time. Her and her friends were on their way to (or maybe from) a party in a barn (maybe a hoedown type event?). Of course at this time cars were not very common so they were making the trip in a horse and buggy. Somehow the horse and buggy ended up in the ditch. I was always unclear as to how it happened, but to Nana that was not the point of the story. The story was always about the outcome. Apparently she hurt her elbow pretty bad. So bad in fact that 80 years after the crash she still complained about pain in her elbow. Whether that pain had anything to do with the crash didn't really matter, because every time she had some sort of pain in her elbow we got to hear the cool story about how she hurt her elbow way back when.

I'm sure there are other memories that I'm forgetting right now, but these are the ones that have always resonated in my mind and will always resonate. Unfortunately, I will not be home for the funeral, but I will be there in spirit.

Brandon